Change stars as read-hide-char

Change stars as read-hide-char

[Colin Baxter]

My apologies for posting here, I can't get posting rights at
gmane.emacs.help. My `return-confirmation' emails get bounced at that
news-group. 

The development emacs-27 version recently changed the default character
seen when entering a password from `.' to `*'. I want to get back to the
old default, but

(let (read-hide-char) "?.")

does not work, and my e-lisp knowledge is insufficient to understand the
reason. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks.

Colin.

Re: Change stars as read-hide-char

[Robert Pluim]

Colin Baxter <m43cap@yandex.com> writes:

> My apologies for posting here, I can't get posting rights at
> gmane.emacs.help. My `return-confirmation' emails get bounced at that
> news-group. 
>
> The development emacs-27 version recently changed the default character
> seen when entering a password from `.' to `*'. I want to get back to the
> old default, but
>
> (let (read-hide-char) "?.")
>

'let' specifies a list of variable bindings, and you want the
character '.', not a string containing '?' and '.', so itʼs:

(let ((read-hide-char ?. ))
     (message "%c" read-hide-char))

Robert

Re: Change stars as read-hide-char

[Colin Baxter]

Dear Robert,

Thank you for your reply.

>>>>> Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> writes:

    > Colin Baxter <m43cap@yandex.com> writes:
    >> My apologies for posting here, I can't get posting rights at
    >> gmane.emacs.help. My `return-confirmation' emails get bounced at
    >> that news-group.
    >> 
    >> The development emacs-27 version recently changed the default
    >> character seen when entering a password from `.' to `*'. I want
    >> to get back to the old default, but
    >> 
    >> (let (read-hide-char) "?.")
    >> 

    > 'let' specifies a list of variable bindings, and you want the
    > character '.', not a string containing '?' and '.', so itʼs:

    > (let ((read-hide-char ?. )) (message "%c" read-hide-char))

Unfortunately

(let ((read-hide-char ?. ))
     (message "%c" read-hide-char))

also doesn't work. It gives the error

Wrong type argument: characterp, "?."

as soon as I enter a password. The same error occurs if I use
`emacs -q'. Could this be a bug?

Best wishes,

Colin.

Re: Change stars as read-hide-char

[Robert Pluim]

Colin Baxter <m43cap@yandex.com> writes:

>>>>>> Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> writes:
>
>     > Colin Baxter <m43cap@yandex.com> writes:
>     >> My apologies for posting here, I can't get posting rights at
>     >> gmane.emacs.help. My `return-confirmation' emails get bounced at
>     >> that news-group.
>     >> 
>     >> The development emacs-27 version recently changed the default
>     >> character seen when entering a password from `.' to `*'. I want
>     >> to get back to the old default, but
>     >> 
>     >> (let (read-hide-char) "?.")
>     >> 
>
>     > 'let' specifies a list of variable bindings, and you want the
>     > character '.', not a string containing '?' and '.', so itʼs:
>
>     > (let ((read-hide-char ?. )) (message "%c" read-hide-char))
>
> Unfortunately
>
> (let ((read-hide-char ?. ))
>      (message "%c" read-hide-char))
>
> also doesn't work. It gives the error
>
> Wrong type argument: characterp, "?."
>
> as soon as I enter a password. The same error occurs if I use
> `emacs -q'. Could this be a bug?

Hmm. Could you show a full transcript of what youʼre doing? Donʼt
forget that the let-binding is only valid within the let, not for the
entire session. If you want it to valid all the time you'll need to do

(setq read-hide-char ?.)

Robert

Re: Change stars as read-hide-char

[Colin Baxter]

Dear Robert

>>>>> Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> writes:

    > Colin Baxter <m43cap@yandex.com> writes:
    >>>>>>> Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> writes:
    >> 
    >> > Colin Baxter <m43cap@yandex.com> writes: >> My apologies for
    >> posting here, I can't get posting rights at >>
    >> gmane.emacs.help. My `return-confirmation' emails get bounced at
    >> >> that news-group.
    >> >> 
    >> >> The development emacs-27 version recently changed the default
    >> >> character seen when entering a password from `.' to `*'. I
    >> want >> to get back to the old default, but
    >> >> 
    >> >> (let (read-hide-char) "?.")
    >> >> 
    >> 
    >> > 'let' specifies a list of variable bindings, and you want the >
    >> character '.', not a string containing '?' and '.', so itʼs:
    >> 
    >> > (let ((read-hide-char ?. )) (message "%c" read-hide-char))
    >> 
    >> Unfortunately
    >> 
    >> (let ((read-hide-char ?. )) (message "%c" read-hide-char))
    >> 
    >> also doesn't work. It gives the error
    >> 
    >> Wrong type argument: characterp, "?."
    >> 
    >> as soon as I enter a password. The same error occurs if I use
    >> `emacs -q'. Could this be a bug?

    > Hmm. Could you show a full transcript of what youʼre doing? Donʼt
    > forget that the let-binding is only valid within the let, not for
    > the entire session. If you want it to valid all the time you'll
    > need to do

    > (setq read-hide-char ?.)

Ok, that explains things I think. At the beginning, I wanted to set `.'
as the read-hide-char in my emacs-init file, but the doc string for
read-hide-char says it should never be set globally. I took that to mean
never to set via a `setq'. This seemed to be confirmed in comments of
the lisp/subr.el file, where using a let-bind is suggested. Hence my
efforts at writing a `let' to my emacs-init, which maybe were a little
naive.

The (setq read-hide-char ?.) does indeed work, and seems to do so
without creating errors elsewhere. So I'll leave it in my ~/.emacs for
now. However, I am now curious as to what the sentence, `This variable
should never be set globally.' means in the doc-string for
`read-hide-char'. Perhaps the doc-string could be amplified slightly?

Thank you very much for your help.

Best wishes,

Colin.

Re: Change stars as read-hide-char

[Robert Pluim]

Colin Baxter <m43cap@yandex.com> writes:

>     > Hmm. Could you show a full transcript of what youʼre doing? Donʼt
>     > forget that the let-binding is only valid within the let, not for
>     > the entire session. If you want it to valid all the time you'll
>     > need to do
>
>     > (setq read-hide-char ?.)
>
> Ok, that explains things I think. At the beginning, I wanted to set `.'
> as the read-hide-char in my emacs-init file, but the doc string for
> read-hide-char says it should never be set globally. I took that to mean
> never to set via a `setq'. This seemed to be confirmed in comments of
> the lisp/subr.el file, where using a let-bind is suggested. Hence my
> efforts at writing a `let' to my emacs-init, which maybe were a little
> naive.
>
> The (setq read-hide-char ?.) does indeed work, and seems to do so
> without creating errors elsewhere. So I'll leave it in my ~/.emacs for
> now. However, I am now curious as to what the sentence, `This variable
> should never be set globally.' means in the doc-string for
> `read-hide-char'. Perhaps the doc-string could be amplified slightly?

I suspect there are situations where having read-hide-char set causes
things to be hidden that shouldn't be, hence it should only be set
temporarily. Maybe someone on the list here knows.

Robert